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Valeska Peschke
Und er kommt nicht allein, 2007-2008

Over seven meters tall, a black silhouette of a dog casts its shadow over Berlin’s urban wasteland. In her project, "Und er kommt nicht allein", Berlin-based artist, Valeska Peschke constructs a monumental landmark that announces Skulpturenpark’s most frequent users, dogs. This new landmark derives from the famous Toro de Osborne (Osborne’s Bull). In 1956, the Osborne sherry company began erecting silhouettes of a bull painted with the maker’s name as advertising billboards along highways throughout Spain’s spacious and mountainous landscape. Nearly 40 years later, a law was passed forbidding such advertising. By then, however, the public had adopted the Toro as an unofficial national symbol. After citizen resistance in 1997, the Spanish High Court allowed them to remain as objects of cultural and aesthetic significance.

"Und er kommt nicht allein" displaces the principles of the Spanish Toro to downtown Berlin. Its scale, once determined by its distance from the highway, now poses a question about being a sign developed not for advertising but as an artwork in relationship to its urban landscape. The Toro’s significance shifted from commercial to cultural. Peschke refers to this transference and adopts a commercial form, but uses it as a universal aesthetic that can critique its surroundings. At Skulpturenpark, how will local residents perceive this un-requested and identifiable monument which has just invaded “their” space? Tellingly, the owner of the lot originally sited for the large dog denied its construction for fear that the sculpture would legitimize the land’s already public and obvious use as a dog run.

Valeska Peschke has created previous projects which focus on how to read the city area. "Volcanoes in Berlin" (1993-97) deals with the development of conceptional worlds and instructions for actions that offer the possibility to experience areas and wastelands in change. With "Instant Home/Modernism" (ongoing) she created prototypes of houses and of cartographic and topological examinations arise from observing how the model worlds behave towards the environment.

Artist's website: www.valeskapeschke.com

With generous assistance from Krinner Schraubfundamente (www1.krinner.de).